


(a)typical love story

by Ididntsignupforthisshit (myhamartia)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Awkwardness, Camp Counselor AU, First Kiss, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Summer Romance, and there was only one bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 01:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhamartia/pseuds/Ididntsignupforthisshit
Summary: "I hear that there's leeches in the lake, now," Nat hummed, taking a long sip of her coffee.Bucky snorted at her. "That's an urban legend to keep the kids out of the pond."She cut him a glance over the tops of her sunglasses. "Is it?"Working Camp Vers was the highlight of Bucky's summers. He got to see his friends, his family -- got to fuck around in the absolute mayhem that was camp life.This year though... might get a little bit complicated. Your ex-boyfriend running around campus with his current girlfriend is tough enough before you add the possibility of a new summer romance to the mix.





	(a)typical love story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CyrusBreeze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyrusBreeze/gifts).



> hey guys! i literally haven't written in like three? months? and im trying to get back into the swing because it's killin' me, Smalls
> 
> I've been interning at camp, getting my volunteer hours in at camp for the past three weeks straight. and i desperately needed to get this outta my system, yk?
> 
> hope you guys like it!! <3

Bucky stayed with the Starks during the summer — it was something that had been going on since he was a little kid with a shitty dad, wanting an opportunity to escape life for a while.

By the time ol’ Pops left the picture, Bucky was already attached, all these people held close to his chest.

So he hung around. He helped Tony set up the camps, and then later helped it all run.

It was, in nearly every way, Bucky’s home away from home. He knew the entire grounds like the back of his hand. He could totally find his way in the dark, with a blindfold on, after being turned around a dozen times.

He slept in one of the smaller A-frame cabins much farther down the lines.  Cabin D was where his bag rested at night. There was never a surplus of interns, and even when they had an influx, there were never enough boys to fill the cabin. They were all prone to sleeping on the lower level, because who the fuck wants to slug up stairs after a long day of running around and working the campgrounds?

That was Bucky’s golden opportunity, because it led him to claiming the loft. It was a slow process, but Bucky eventually got everything situated the way he wanted it, with two bunks pushed up together to make a fullsize bed. There was a desk to the side, and an air conditioner unit in the window.

It was comfortable — homey, even.

Some of the boys wanted up there then, but by then it as Bucky’s place. Well, okay. Clint slept on the top bunk when he came in to volunteer for the week.

He liked to feel tall, Nat said. Bucky wasn’t gonna argue with her; as long as Clint kept his area clean, and they all survived room-checks, Bucky let him do as he pleased. Clint only volunteered one out of three weeks, anyway, it’s not like they were under each other’s feet the entire month.

There weren’t very many of them who stayed the entire full term anymore. Bucky understood. People grew up, got time-demanding jobs and Uni courses, and suddenly there was no more time for going to camp anymore. It was fine, Bucky got it, he just missed seeing some of the people he otherwise wouldn’t get to see.

Of course, there were still the OGs. Natasha still went the entire time, but that was expected, because she was staffed under Stark himself. Even lived on-grounds, in a little house on the very far end of the woods not far off the little lake there.

And then here was Thor and Loki. Sometimes Bruce, so long as he didn’t have any official internships lasting into June.

And yeah, there was Steve.

Steven G. Rogers was a perfect, All-American type of boy, complete with a loving mama, blonde hair and stunning blue eyes. He was scrawny when Bucky first met him, with a feisty streak a mile wide. Bucky pulled him out of a fight two days after fist meeting him, and made a promise to try and protect him from then on out. He stuck with that promise, even as Steve filled out and got big enough to fight all of his battles (and actually win some this time).

They got a good twelve years out of that friendship. Bucky looked out around the campground, and every possible nook and cranny was saturated with memories of the two of them together. Sometimes with their friends, but mostly it was just the pair of them, running into trouble as often as they took a breath.

He let his duffle thump against the cement flooring, and kicked the door shut behind him. There was a set of drawers on the far side of the wall, stuck up in the corner. It was a bitch to try and haul up the stairs, but that was a memory Bucky didn’t exactly like to come back to.

It certainly wasn’t something to bring up to Bruce… Poor Bruce broke two toes that day.

Bucky spent about a half-hour arranging his things into the drawer, making sure that everything was folded and sorted according to their likes. After he was done, he tucked his extra shoes under his bed. He hung his towels and stocked his bathroom before deciding that maybe that was good enough for a break.

There wasn’t much to do around the camp today, so there wasn’t a rush to get back on the battlefield.

He flopped down onto his bed with a puff of air. He swore that dust came up with him. The particles danced in the meager sunlight coming from behind the blinds in the window. It even smelled musty in here.

Bucky hauled himself up, looking around the room for a moment. It was spartan, much like it always was during the off season. Soon it would fill back up. He really ought to just give in and invest in a desk and matching chair to put down here one of these days.

He’d talk to Tony about it, maybe.

Pushing himself up, he groaned loud and long as he stretched out his back. He made quick work of pulling the sheets off the bed and bundled them with the folded blankets at the foot of the bed. His pillow case joined the pile soon enough, and he gathered it all in one big ball so he could haul it up over his shoulder. He pulled the door shut with his foot and went on his way.

The laundry room was a glorified broom closet with a washer and drier stuffed in the back of it, stacked on top of each other. It was in the hallway leading to the backdoor of the girl’s dorm, Cabin A.

He walked down the gravel road back down to the girl’s dorms — civilization, really. Cabin A, rec hall, the auditorium and the mess hall was all in one big clump while the boy’s cabins were much farther down, edging farther into the woods — really hoping that no one had laid claim to the washer, yet. Bucky wasn’t above throwing hands with another counselor if it meant he got to clean his sheets.

-

It was like something out of a horror movie, how quiet Cabin A was. Dead silent. Stale air, and concrete floors. All the lights were shut off. Perfect — the launry room was all Bucky’s.

-

Camp prep, like always, was a very quiet week and a half.

There weren’t very many staff present, usually six at most — more if the Starks decided to head up early, too.

Some staff members came and went. Most were volunteers, but there were a few of them were on the permanent payroll, showing up year after year if they didn’t already work to maintain the camp year-round.

Bucky was on said payroll, but he wasn’t on-campus year-round. Sometimes he stepped in when he needed extra cash, or they were short on staff, but his position was mostly seasonal.

Unlike Bucky’s best friend Natasha, who lived in the small cottage on the outskirts of the property. She helped with the main upkeep of the whole place, (though they did hire out for landscape help.) and Natasha was shockingly handy with a wrench — almost scarily so.

Nat popped her bubblegum and hummed, propped her hands up on her hips. The whiteboard in the staff room held  _ The List _ of jobs, tasks, and punishments. It was drawn out in orange Expo and curvy letters, no space was left for silly doodles Nat may or may not have been planning to put down. She dropped her hand and tapped her purple Expo against her thigh.

“Do we want to split these up by day, level of difficulty, or area?” she asked, turning to face the room.

A kid sitting at the long table slumped in his chair, twisting his heels into the tiled floor. This was Peter “has too many names and guardians to list, so we just call him Peter Parker” Parker.

Peter had a… complicated family history, and Bucky really wasn’t up on all the details, so would just say this: Peter was practically born and raised in-camp. It was just as much Peter’s home as it was Bucky’s, the place was engraved in his heart. The kid had been attending camp longer than even Bucky himself.

He said attending, because Peter wasn’t really held to the same rules and guidelines as the other campers. His Aunt was the camp nurse, and more often than not, he could be found hanging around her nurse station rather than participating in the activities required of the kids.

And sometimes he’d be following his dad around, insisting that he help run the camp in _super_ important ways like holding keys and clipboards, and answering the walkie talkie when Mr. Lang called on it. Bucky thought it must have been a tough job, being assistant director of a youth camp at age 6, but Peter B. Parker was a talented young man.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that Peter was a fresh 17. Baby faced and  _ interning _ , now.

Shit’s crazy, and it made Bucky feel extremely old.

“I’ll take cabin cleanup,” Peter spoke up, pushing himself up on the side of his chair.

“Yeah, Peter, take the job in the air conditioned cabins,” Ned, Peter’s best friend, snorted and he rolled his eyes. Those two were peas in a pod.

“I’ll put you both down,” Nat said, blocking off “ _ CLEAN/MOP CABINS A-D _ ,” and scribbling the boys’ names across the top of the box. “Peter will need help, especially with the Cottage.”

Peter murmured a prayer of thanks, because the Cottage was fucking  _ massive _ , and then it was down to the next order of business. It all went fairly quickly after the hardest tasks were given out. The pool house was assigned to Thor and Bruce, the kitchen was given a small team, and it was all fairly small stuff from there. Things like sweeping sidewalks and mopping the auditorium floors.

Bucky had a series of odd jobs lined up as the meeting ended, all off-campus stuff that meant he’d be driving around until this evening. Nat gave her usual inspirational “Go forth and accomplish greatness” speech (that was only  _ slightly _ deadpan this year) before she let them all go. Ned and Peter rushed off in a hurry, wisely planning to fill the mop buckets first and lug them over to the cabins before they got too burnt out.

Bucky snapped a picture of his tasks with his phone just before Nat wiped the board down. She grinned over her shoulder at him. “Ready for this year?”

He nodded at her. “As I can be,” he mused. “Need anything while I’m out?” He patted his pockets down before realizing that he left his keys in his room.

“Rainbow sour belts.” She jotted down a note on a board before capping her marker and slipping it into her pocket. Nat always carried her own Expos — camp markers were notoriously dry at all times. Maybe it was something in the air. “Need any help with that list?”

He shook his head. “Nah. Simple shit. I got it.” He gave her an easy smile. “See you when I get back in?”

She laughed at him, looking at him like he was crazy. “It’s too damn early to be throwing myself in the lake, Barnes,” she chided. “This is a stamina race, babe, and we aren’t losing yet.”

He nodded, a laugh bubbling up in him. “You’re right, I’m wrong. We gotta stay strong.”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll get you your rainbow belts.” He patted her shoulder and turned to leave.

“You better, or I’m going to throw  _ you _ in the lake. I hear there’s leeches, now, so be careful.”

Bucky left for his room grinning, stuffing his hand in his pocket. The campgrounds were buzzing, Bucky felt it in the air. Filled him with a certain giddiness, and he couldn’t stop fucking grinning.

God, this was going to be a great summer.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope u liked it!! sam will appear next chapter! :) :) :)
> 
> leave me a comment! teamwork makes the dream work, and my dream is to make more fics.
> 
> comments > motivations > more fics
> 
> it's sCiEnTiFiC!!!!!
> 
> [tumblr](https://littlemumman.tumblr.com/) | [kofi](https://ko-fi.com/bleualexander)


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